New Delhi, November 18
Nepal’s top Maoist leader Prachanda, who led the 10-year-long bloody war against monarchy in the impoverished Himalayan nation, today expressed his readiness to be the Executive President of a new Democratic Republic of Nepal.
"Individually, I am not interested. But if the party and the people decide, then I will have to take up that responsibility", Mr Prachanda told mediapersons here when asked about reports that he was willing to become the President when a new state structure becomes a reality in Nepal.
He asserted that the new democratic republican system, the details of which were being worked out between the Maoists and the ruling Seven Party Alliance (SPA), would essentially be a Presidential one.
Addressing a press conference on the sidelines of the HT Leadership Summit, Mr Prachanda gave firm indications that a peace agreement between the Maoists and the Koirala government in Nepal will be signed on November 21 and that the Maoists will not tolerate even a ceremonial form of Monarch in the new democratic republican system. “If the King wants to live like a common man we have no objection,” he said.
However, if the people favour a ceremonial form of Monarch we
will try to convince them against that. “We don’t foresee the possibility of a symbolic monarchy as we are sure that 90 per cent of the Nepalese people are against the Monarch.”
On the delay over the signing of the peace agreement with the Koirala government, Mr Prachanda, the Chairman of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), said “there were some technical problems, otherwise, we would have inked the agreement couple of days back. Now it will be signed on November 21 after we get back to Nepal.”
Once the agreement is signed , the
Maoists will end the insurgency and hand over their arms to the UN monitors. “We will confine our militia to our camps and the Nepalese Army would have to go into the barracks,” he said.
